San Luis: Darren Turner event summary

TURNER TAKES FOURTH
Darren Turner finished off his first season of racing in the FIA GT1
World Championship at a very hot San Luis in Argentina today. Along with
his team-mate Tomas Enge, Darren finishes the season in fourth place in
the...

TURNER TAKES FOURTH

Darren Turner finished off his first season of racing in the FIA GT1
World Championship at a very hot San Luis in Argentina today. Along with
his team-mate Tomas Enge, Darren finishes the season in fourth place in
the Driver's World Championship.

Qualifying was tough with the No.7 DBR9 carrying 40kgs of success ballast
from the Interlagos event and with only one set of tyres at his disposal
Darren had to settle for 17th on the grid for the qualifying race. Tomas
took the start and managed to avoid being one of the early casualties and
brought the car in for Darren in 12th place. Another good run from Darren
saw him take the chequered flag in 10th place, setting up a much better
starting position for the championship race this afternoon.

Darren got away well at the start of this afternoon's race but
immediately came up against an unexpected obstacle.

"I had a really good reaction to the lights and went to the right
of the Ford GT in front of me," he explained. "Unfortunately
there was a big kerb there and I got high-sided and thought I was going
to spin into the pack."

This dropped Darren down the order and a few laps later he saw Lopez, his
Argentinian Young Driver AMR team-mate, on his tail. The local driver
managed to get past Darren on lap six.

"I gave him room on the inside as it wasn't worth risking
both of the cars," said Darren. "The only problem with doing
that though is that you get dust all over your tyres and that slows you
down for a while."

When the pit stop window opened, Darren pitted to hand over to Tomas for
the run to the flag. Unfortunately for the Czech driver the No.7 Aston
Martin then suffered from overheating problems and Tomas nursed it home
in 15th place.

"We pretty much had problems from qualifying onwards," said
Darren. "It's disappointing as we went from challenging for
the overall championship to fourth, but that's how it is."

"I've really enjoyed the championship this year. The racing
has been fantastic and we have been to some great circuits. As a team
we've learnt a lot and hopefully it will make Young Driver AMR
stronger for 2011."